The Original Mutant

Oscar Isaac Cast as the Titular Villain in X-Men: Apocalypse

Though he got his big break in grim indie films like Drive, Inside Llewyn Davis, and the upcoming A Most Violent Year, actor Oscar Isaac is now a franchise kind of guy. Hot off his role in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Isaac has been cast as the titular villain in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, according to Variety. That’s right, non–comic-book readers, Apocalypse is the name of the bad guy.

If you stuck around after the last X-Men movie, Days of Future Past, you already got a glimpse of Apocalypse in the film’s post-credits stinger. Here he is in ancient Egypt, showing off his telekinetic skills.

But what is Apocalypse doing in ancient Egypt if the next X-Men film is set in the 1980s? That’s a complicated tale of mutant powers, godlike immortality, alien technology, and suspended animation. But what’s important to know is that Apocalypse is also known as En Sabah Nur, a.k.a. “The First One.” That’s right, that blue-skinned, hooded kid up there is allegedly the first mutant. Director Bryan Singer has exlpained how X-Men: Apocalypse will explore that concept:

Apocalypse deals with ancient mutancy. What would humans have thought
mutants were? What would mutants think humans were? You’re dealing
with gods and things like that. And what if one survived and what if
that found its way into our world?

In the world of the comics, the godlike Apocalypse grows up to look like this.

Blue skin aside, it’s worth noting that Oscar Isaac reads as much more believably “ancient Egyptian” than the other actor rumored to be in the running for Apocalypse: Tom Hardy. Isaac will be squaring off against the Days of Future Past mutants we’ve come to know and love including Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto, James McAvoy’s Xavier, Nicholas Hoult’s Beast, and, most importantly, Evan Peters’s scene-stealing Quicksilver.

But Isaac won’t be the only new kid on the block. The cast is also rumored to include Channing Tatum’s debut as Gambit, as well as younger versions of X-Men characters we already know. Chloë Grace Moretz, Elle Fanning, and Hailee Steinfeldare circling the role of Jean Grey (made famous by Famke Janssen), while lesser-known actors Ben Hardy, Charlie Rowe, and Timothée Chalamet are in the running to replace James Marsden as young Cyclops.

Does that sound like a lot of new faces to add to an already massive cast? It certainly does. But there’s no chance of Isaac getting lost among all the mutants. Apocalypse is one of the most memorable and notoriously evil villains in the X-Men universe. Writer Simon Kinberg promises:

From a visual standpoint it actually may be a bigger movie than Days
of Future Past because there’ll be disaster movie imagery, like the
title would imply.

Strap in, Oscar Isaac and the rest of the mutants roll into theaters in May 2016.